Category: Health & Wellness

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Eliminating Chaos: Think Marie Kondo for your emotional state

Living simply, minimizing your carbon footprint, downsizing…it is for good reason, all the rage. I have personally been hoping to move for a few years now, so every time Goodwill or ARC calls and asks for a donation, I use it as an opportunity to get some of my castaways to the curb. I have never, in my married life, lived in a house so long. For awhile there, we were moving every couple years which is great for cleaning stuff out. I moved into this house when my kids were 5 and now they can legally buy beer. I don’t want to think about what it is going to look like when we finally journey on!

I am fascinated by the cult following of Marie Kondo. She is an organizing mastermind and is taking over the world with books and speaking engagements. Her method, known as KonMari consists of taking a look at each possession and determining if it brings you joy or not. Out with the bad… the joy-inducing possessions get to stay.

One could argue that it isn’t that easy in real life to get rid of stuff. When my kids were little I would have to throw out the broken toys in the middle of the night, to avoid a meltdown. I would like to get rid of my daughter’s comforter-used-more-by-the-dog-than-her, on her bed, but she may divorce me if I do. She told me it reminds her too much of her childhood. Still, there is merit to this method and I can see that it could be of value in our emotional lives as well.

It is a proven fact that visual clutter can contribute to stress, depression, anxiety, lethargy…many life-halting conditions. Cleaning up our surroundings helps us feel energized, focused and ready to get things done. I remember when I was in grad school, Mike loved it when I had a paper due or a test to study for, because he would come home to super tidy surroundings. I wasn’t able to concentrate when I felt my surroundings were a big hot mess.

We can also experience negative symptoms when our emotional lives are in disarray. For example, it can be hard to concentrate at a job you hate, when your child is struggling with addiction or failing out of the 7th grade. Our relationships with frustrating friends can get strained when we are dealing with a struggling marriage, fighting an illness or dealing with a personal loss. When we find ourselves feeling out of control in our emotional space, it can be a good idea to channel our inner Marie Kondo and do some tossing out.

If you are in a particularly stress-filled season of life, you might feel out of control and overwhelmed. Think about it. When you are feeling awesome and in control, there might be people or situations that are not joy-inducing that you can tolerate because in-balance, life is feeling breezy. But when life gets super hard and you are being tossed in the waves a bit, those same relationships can feel toxic. Self preservation might include taking some of those people or situations out of the mix until you have the bandwidth for them. You might need to, for a time at least, focus only on the joy-inducing situations and relationships. I don’t want to go so far to say that you are going to “throw out” relationships but my guess is, once you take a break, you may want to continue to focus on the joy, don’t you think?

This doesn’t mean that you only hold on to what is perfect. I have a cracked teacup that I will never throw away because I can still see my mom holding it in both hands. It brings me joy. I recently spent a few days with some of my besties from college. Each of us are in a tough life season and are less than our awesome selves right now… but in our weakness, we shared, loved and laughed and brought one another great joy. I will keep those girls forever. They bring me the kind of joy that I can barely put into words.

Is it time to focus on joy?

Romans 12:12 says: Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Do you have people in your life that will do this with you? If you do not, it might be time for some KonMari…

As always, let me know if I can help.

Love,

Sonia

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2019: Choosing to live with a gun to my head

Almost exactly 21 years ago, Mike came home from work with the good news that he had been promoted. He excitedly told me, a woman pregnant with twins on bedrest, that we were moving to Salt Lake City. You can imagine the response he got as I processed the information that after waiting for over three years to have those babies, I would immediately be moving away from my all my family and friends. I look back at that time now and remember thinking it was the hardest thing I would ever go through….hmmmm.

The Robie and Bell families back in the day….

Living in Draper, Utah, was not what I had planned. I thought it was going to be the most awful, no-good thing that ever happened to me. I look back at that time now and smile. I cannot fully express how grateful I am for the personal growth that took place during that time. Most of that growth occurred because, through an act of God, Mike and I got connected with a group of folks who were following a call to start the first protestant church in town. Ironically, the leadership team of South Mountain Community Church were people that I had crossed paths with throughout my life in California. We had not officially met, but we were connected through friends and family in a supernatural way. Paul and Jini Robie and Mike and Joanie Bell are the real deal…

Jini Robie, to this day, holds a place in my heart as the most authentic, most challenging “pastor’s wife” that I have ever known. In my opinion, her efforts to minister to the women of our little community fostered a growth in that church that was nothing short of amazing. I look back at the time spent sitting in a circle, first with just a few of us, and then an increasingly larger circle, talking about God, about life, about being God-filled women…learning, loving and laughing.  Many of us were new to the area; searching, or in need of friendship.  I marvel at how Jini’s no-frills approach spoke to each of us in a powerful way. We grew in our relationships with one another, our families and, most importantly, with our Maker.

On one particular occasion, I specifically remember Jini talking about something she had recently read about persecuted Christians. She had heard of a family held at gunpoint, where the parents were asked to renounce their faith to save the lives of their children. I was a first-time mother of six-month-old twins, and at the time did not appreciate having to evaluate if I was committed to the Lord enough to give up my kids’ lives or mine. I did not want to think about what it would be like to have a gun to my head for any reason!  But that conversation impacted me, and I woke up at 2 am just the other morning thinking about it. I do some of my best thinking between the hours of 2 and 3 am…

Recently, as many of you know, I have been put in a position to HAVE to think about serious life and death issues. I have been put in a position that I have to evaluate what is important to me…what legacy I want to leave….how I will invest in others…how I will spend my time… But before this whole thing gets overly dramatic, I want to stress that my prognosis is very hope-filled. I have a team of doctors committed to giving me the best of modern and naturalistic medicine. I believe I have MANY years to sit and contemplate…plus it is my plan is to be an over-achiever and defy all odds…but contemplate I will what it is to live fully in Christ and become all I am meant to be.

Most likely, I will never be in a position where terrorists invade my home and put a gun to my head. But I have a metaphoric gun pointed at my head, and I am strangely accepting of the position it puts me in. Maybe God loves me enough to force me to hurry up and get my health protocol ironed out so I can pursue my private practice more than ever, commit to my ministry with a sold-out passion, and invest in people intentionally and with a sense of urgency. Have I been too lackadaisical in my former approach to life?

What is it that you are called to? What passions do you need a nudge to pursue? Is there some physical or emotional baggage that you need to iron out in order to be the man or woman that God has created you to be? Maybe you would like to join me in living 2019 as if you have a gun to your head….

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Value Your Time: Are you worth more than a tank of gas?

A few years ago, my husband and I began using a phrase when we felt people were taking advantage of our Empathic-ness. It came out of an experience he had with a local realtor who kept canceling meetings and when they finally settled on a time to share a lunch, the guy was over 30 minutes late. Mike left the restaurant and when the realtor called to explain his tardiness, his excuse was that he had stopped for gas and he hoped to reschedule. Now, let’s be clear…there are lots of good reasons to cancel a commitment and lots of reasonable excuses for tardiness but….really?

So now, when we encounter situations in our life where it is clear that our time, our love, our commitment, is not being appreciated how we hoped it would be, we declare (or mumble…or emphasize with an eye roll…) that we are INDEED worth more than a tank of gas!

It took us years to get here.

Are you an Empath that finds yourself in situations where the other person in the relationship does not seem to put the same value on you, your time, your commitment, that you put on theirs?

Is it hard for you to claim self-worth because it feels selfish? Let’s try to reframe this so that you can start living in an empowered, more “true to yourself” way! Give and take in a relationship is part of every healthy friendship, marriage or business relationship. However, an imbalance can occur, leaving one side or the other feeling really taken advantage of and hurt. Without fail, the more Empathic you are, the more you tolerate as you seek to preserve the relationship.

Chasing after a relationship that is doomed to fail, is common for Empaths. They are prone to think that there is something they can say or do that will make the other person respond more favorably. Unfortunately, in this process, respect can be lost leading to more situations where the Empath does not feel heard, understood or valued.

If you are the Empath, there is wisdom in taking care to reserve that “extra effort” for relationships that have a hopeful outcome, or for members of your family that you are bound to for life. But putting on some protective armor for other relationships is important if you want to find meaningful relationships in this life. The longer you stay connected to someone who does not value you, the longer you risk being away from the relationship that will value you.

Because YOU are worth more than a tank of gas!

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Marriage Seminar #4: Couple Culture

Studies show that couples who struggle early in their marriage, often have conflict over unmet assumptions. I hear struggles when young couples come to counseling, that suggest there were conversations that should have taken place, prior to the walk down the aisle, if the merger was to be without some tension:

I thought he would be the one to take out the trash.
I don’t think we should have separate bank accounts and my spouse thinks we should.
We used to do lots of fun things together and now we just stay home.
I thought we would have more sex.

Couple culture is like a marriage mission statement

I went to pre-marital counseling back in the day, with a church pastor…not a therapist. Let’s just say that it was not an amazing experience. In retrospect, the counseling was very focused on whether or not we were compatible and less about helping us to create a couple culture that would help us navigate through our early years.

Let’s be honest, if you are going to pre-marital counseling, you are going to get married regardless of being found compatible or not! What you really need is a discussion about techniques that can be used to create a dynamic within your marriage that allows each individual to have their own needs met, while they develop tools to meet the needs of their partner.

One simple tool that can be used to help create a couple culture is for each person to identify personal values that they want to be respected within the new couple dynamic. These values can be altruistic goals, career aspirations, personal hobbies, religious and political ideals, and any other idea…just generalities that define a life vision. The collaboration of these ideas should result in goal statements that look something like this:

We are a couple who ______________________.

Our home is a place where __________________ is important.

We want to become a couple that ___________________.

We do not want to be a couple that _______________________.

There are obviously a variety of statements that could be made here, but do you get the idea?

The second step is to take each statement and come up with a couple ways that each person can assist in making that statement come true.

I can help us become a couple who _________________ by _____________________. (Example: “I can help us become a couple that continues to date by planning an outing once a month.”)

A good thing to put in your back pocket is the idea that whatever your “couple culture” is, prior to expansion of the family with little ones, will be the start of your “family culture”. If you want to be a family that goes hiking, volunteers at the homeless shelter and shows respect to one another, that dynamic is best started when there are just two of you!

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Marriage Seminar #1: Let’s talk porn

As a member of the American Counseling Association, I am encouraged to stay educated on the latest statistical data surrounding human emotional dysfunction. Let’s just say that recently I have been reading a lot of articles about sex and I feel compelled to say a few things. 

Here are some facts. With the recent surge and availability of pornographic materials accessible via the internet, more and more couples and singles have found that their initial interest in porn is turning into an addiction to porn, or an inability to find sexual satisfaction outside the use of pornography.  If you had told me before graduate school how much I would be talking about sex in the counseling space, I would not have believed you. But because of the cultural norms of today and the availability of pornography, let’s just say I talk about sex A LOT. I would also like to add that I am very concerned that if this problem is not addressed, the repercussions are going to play out detrimentally in the marriage bed.

Just to give you a little statistical information, current estimates are suggesting that the AVERAGE age of the first exposure to pornography is 11. That is the fifth or sixth grade for most kids. This happens primarily because websites that target kids, purposefully choose domain names that are close to websites popular with kids. It also happens because parents of kids forget to clear their browsers or don’t want controls on their computers. Curious kids that click through the images are then stimulated by the images and often return to the images without a lot of understanding of what they are seeing, other than the physical response they experience as stimulating and rewarding. 

Fast forward to the prolonged use of pornography: Because porn is a supernormal experience of the real thing, the brain adjusts its release of dopamine (pleasure hormone stuff) to accommodate the images and subsequent pleasure. Unfortunately, if this goes on for a while, the person who continues to engage with pornography might find themselves depressed when they are at a “baseline” state, needing the visuals just to alleviate a bad mood. They also may find themselves unable to perform in real life “situations” because the stimulus and atmosphere do not compare to what they have experienced online. (I bet the manufacturers of Viagra love this!) But sadly, you can imagine what this does to a marriage relationship. No normal human being, with a job and a couple of kids can compete with enhanced sexual images that are being produced in an artificial environment. 

Like all addictions, it is important to understand that if a sexual addiction goes untreated, negative behaviors can escalate. Sexual addiction starts as needing artificial stimulation for a sexual experience but can manifest in later stages of addiction as compulsion….compulsive masturbation, anonymous sex, etc. (Of course, sex offenders are people whose sex addiction has gone WAY off the charts, but since I really don’t see people in my practice who fall into that range of addiction, I am going to keep it simple.)

Back to MARRIAGE! Sex in marriage is supposed to be more about intimacy and connection and a bit less about getting an itch scratched! When couples come for counseling and express that their sex life doesn’t exist without the use of pornography as stimulation, it is an indicator of dysfunction within their interpersonal relationship and the road to healing can be difficult. And because millennials have been “culturalized” to view porn, their marriages are suffering the most! Did you know that millennials of today have sex LESS than any previous generation because they find pornography an easier “outlet” to sexual satisfaction????? Hmmmmm….that is a whole discussion in itself.

So, what if couples worked on communication more and found ways to bring their excitement to the bedroom? And what if foreplay started with someone making coffee for the one they love in the AM and progressed through the day with encouragement and stimulating conversation? And what if the approach to sex was how to care for the individual you are in love with and less about checking a box? Is there a chance that marriages could be satisfying and worth hanging on to? Are you willing to give it a try?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Panic Attacks: What are you doing to empower yourself?

Personally, I have had one panic attack in my life. It was a horrible experience. It occurred when my father was hospitalized near the end of his life, my husband was out of work, I was in my last semester of grad school and I got my breast cancer diagnosis. I remember feeling like I was suffocating and needed to lay down, which occurred more like a faint than sitting down gracefully to catch my breath. I knew to put my head between my knees and regulate my breathing but honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it out alive. I have to say I am grateful for the experience, as it has given me a point of reference for the clients I serve that have ongoing, debilitating occurrences. 

Having a panic attack can make you feel like you are going to die.

Panic attacks come on fast. There is a general feeling of being overwhelmed that leads to a temporary paralysis both mentally and physically. Often the person experiencing a panic attack feels a shortness of breath. People report thinking that they were dying, feeling cold, losing feeling in a limb or rapid heartbeat. If you, or someone you love, experience panic attacks, there are many strategies that you can put to practice that can help you get to “the other side”.

Here are some of the basics:

1.  Breathe: deep, not shallow, inhales with slow exhales, head between your knees if needed.

2.   Identify the “triggers”: Know the situations, or people, that cause you to feel overwhelmed and plan for those experiences in advance.

3.   Calm yourself ahead of time: Meditation, prayer, quiet time, yoga, long walks are all good ways to spend time processing life, making stressful situations more manageable.

4.   Write the script: Once you know the triggers, practice the scenarios through imagery to give yourself confidence. Remind yourself how you have survived in the past and that whatever you are encountering is temporary. 

5.   Identify your support system: Trusted friends, support animals, mentors or professional counselors should be used to provide accountability and for traumatic moments where you need to be “talked off the cliff”.

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia